HillsHelps.

Now that the holiday excess is behind you, it’s a great time to review your household budget. The key to managing a budget is finding ways to make it fun so it’s easy to maintain. Develop a game by identifying opportunities for saving within your household. Have everyone identify items or services they use around the house that cost money and brainstorm ways to save by spending less.

Go green and save on utilities.
Challenge yourself and your household to take simple steps like turning off lights, unplugging appliances or electronics, not pre-heating the oven longer than necessary, boiling warm water with a lid on the pot, and turning down the thermostat a couple of degrees in order to save on utilities.

Get exercise and reduce transportation.
Challenge yourself to make only one trip to the store per week, and think of other fun ways you can limit your vehicle usage. When the weather’s right, take bike rides, or walk to the local library or store. Not only will you save money, but you’ll save the environment!

Find local entertainment.
It’s easy to overlook what’s happening in our own communities. The Corridor has many free or low-cost entertainment opportunities to experience local life. Visit hillsbanklivelocal.com for ways on save money on travel and spend quality time with family and friends while supporting our community!

Get a budget buddy.
You have heard of a fitness pal; why not apply the same principles to budgeting? If you have a friend who wants to be your budget buddy, use that motivation to help you save. It’s always fun to encourage and motivate a friend, especially if they start slacking, just like you would with a fitness pal.

Compete and save.
Have a competitive streak? Get a family member or friend to participate in a savings contest with you. Track spending every day for a month, and whoever spends more has to do an undesirable chore like clean the house. It will be great motivation for every purchase because even if it’s only $1.00, you will ask yourself if it’s worth losing and risking the possibility of having to spend an afternoon cleaning. To top it off, even if you lose, you still win because you saved more than you would have without the competition.

Use these ideas to get started, but don’t stop there! Talk to family and friends to find out the saving ideas they implement in their own house. Or, search your smartphone’s app store and the internet for more ways to make a game out of saving. Get your own creative juices flowing to think up fun ways to save. Share your ideas for making budgeting fun in the comments below.

About Dave Kriz

Dave Kriz is Vice President, Marketing for Hills Bank. He has been at Hills Bank since 2001 helping customers with their banking needs. Dave is active in youth and education programs Hills Bank sponsors. As a former teacher, he enjoys teaching Banking 101 classes at area schools, which educate junior high students about managing finances. Each year, Dave also organizes the Youth Salute program that recognizes outstanding high school seniors in our surrounding communities. Dave can be reached at dave_kriz@hillsbank.com.

Leave a Reply

Thanks for taking time to provide a comment or question! In order to keep your private information private and keep the conversation constructive, please keep the following guidelines in mind:

Please do not provide account specific details or personal information in your comments or questions. If you have account or service needs, please contact your Personal Banker at any Hills Bank location.

Comments will be reviewed and approved before appearing on our blog. Keep comments and questions relevant to the post you are responding to, and as always, keep comments respectful. Personal attacks, offensive language, or anything deemed inappropriate will not be approved to appear on our blog.

Under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), you must be 13 or older in order to comment on our blog posts.

Due to phishing - an identity theft method attempting to acquire personal information, we cannot accept links to other blogs in our comments.

NOTICE: Hills Bank and Trust Company is not responsible for and has no control over the subject matter, content, information, or graphics of the web sites that have links here. Please contact us with any concerns or comments.